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Why are some Arab countries helping Israel against Iran?

2024-04-16 09:18:02Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Why are some Arab countries helping Israel against Iran?
Why are some Arab countries helping Israel against Iran?

On Saturday night, Iran launched more than 300 drones and missiles at Israel in retaliation for the alleged Israeli attack on the Iranian embassy in Damascus in early April.

As rockets and slow-moving drones were aimed at Israel, the latter's allies stepped in to help.

The United States of America and Great Britain were involved in eliminating the danger that came from the air. France may also have been involved in patrolling the area, although it remains unclear if the French neutralized any drones.

But what attracted the most attention was the fact that the Air Force of Jordan helped in this situation. Jordan opened its airspace to Israeli and American aircraft and at the same time eliminated the drones that forcibly entered this space.

According to the Reuters news agency, residents there heard loud noises of unusual aerial activity and footage of the remains of a downed drone in the Jordanian capital, Amman, circulated on social media.

"The Persian Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, may also have played an indirect role, by 'hosting' Western air defense systems and making areas available for surveillance and refueling of fighter jets, assistance that was vital during those hours" - the British media "The Economist" emphasized in its report.

In the online world, well-known analysts such as journalist Anshel Pfeffer from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz and Mairav ​​Zonszein from the International Crisis Group were the first to celebrate Arab involvement. They said this cooperation proved that Arabs and Israelis can work together and that Israel was not left alone in the Middle East.

"Iran's attacks brought together new international support for Israel, including Arab states that were critical of the attacks on Gaza, but supported Israel's defensive military response to the drone attacks," said Julien Barnes-Dacey, director, on Sunday. of the Middle East and North Africa program at the European Council on Foreign Policy Affairs.

Jordan, for example, has been a very strict critic of Israel's military campaign in Gaza, which continued over the weekend. One in five residents of Jordan is of Palestinian origin, including the queen herself, while in recent weeks there has been a significant increase in the number of protests against Israel.

However, Jordan, which also shares a border with Israel and is the custodian of the Al-Aqsa Mosque – a site of great significance to Muslims, Christians and Jews – regularly cooperates with Israeli authorities, although in most cases discretely.

Jordan and Saudi Arabia, difficult task of maintaining balances

The Jordanian authorities, which also consider the United States an important ally, must balance many competing interests alongside its political stability and self-defense. Jordan immediately declared that by helping Israel, it was actually defending itself.

"The objects that entered our airspace were spotted and stopped because they were a threat to our people and populated areas," the Jordanian government said in a press statement. "Several fragments from the hit targets fell on the territory of our country, without causing any particular damage".

Emile Hokayem of the International Institute for Strategic Studies said Jordan's involvement was "to prove to the US what a good partner it is."

Saudi Arabia is another country that must maintain a balance between its interests, international allies and positioning around the conflict in Gaza.

The Gulf state was very close to normalizing relations with Israel before the October 7 attacks, when Hamas struck Israel, killing 1,200 people. But then Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza, where more than 33,000 people have been killed in the past six months, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, which is run by Hamas. Due to these developments, reconciliation plans between Saudi Arabia and Israel remained suspended.

The Saudi government has been in favor of a cease-fire in Gaza and has been critical of the Israeli offensive. But internal sources say that in the future the Saudis have been interested in improving relations with Israel.

Protracted conflict between Iran and the Persian Gulf

Whether or not it intervened in Israel's defense over the weekend, Saudi Arabia has other reasons to be willing to shoot down Iranian missiles.

For decades, the Middle East has been divided by various religious sects, with some of the Sunni Muslim-majority Gulf Arab states opposed to Iran, which is considered the leader of Shiite Islam. In essence, the religious enmity is almost similar to earlier conflicts in Europe, when the two main sects of Christianity - Protestants and Catholics - were rivals fighting each other.

Central Middle Eastern states such as Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, whose populations are a mix of Shiite and Sunni Muslims as well as other religions and ethnicities, have been caught between themselves as Iran and the Gulf states have tried to exercise each has its own impact.

This is where those known as Iran's "delegates" come into play. This grouping includes Shiite Muslim organizations that Iran supports financially, militarily, logistically and even spiritually, in a sense. The Houthi rebel group, the militia known as the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq and the political and military group Hezbollah in Lebanon are all members of this Iranian-funded alliance. The Hamas group is also supported by Iran, but it is an exceptional case, consisting of Sunni Muslims, like most Palestinians.

These groups launched missiles at Israel from Yemen, Syria and Iraq as part of the Iranian offensive. Reports from Iraq indicate that the US military, in the bases there, shot down some of these missiles.

In Iraq, reports suggest that the US military based there shot down some of those missiles. It is still unclear whether the Saudis tracked any such launched from Yemen. But this discovery happened before, more specifically at the end of last year.

"For regional actors, particularly Saudi Arabia and Jordan — who are said to have intercepted Iranian drones — the argument will be that they are rightfully defending their sovereign airspace," says Masoud Mostajibi, Deputy Director of Middle East Programs. at the Atlantic Council, based in the US.

"However, if Saturday's attacks escalate into a broader Israel-Iran conflict, regional actors perceived as Israel's protectors may find themselves targeted and dragged into this regional firefight. Given what is at stake, it is likely that regional leaders will be motivated to act between the two sides to bring this conflict to an end," he concluded./ DW


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